By: Brittany Jarvis, PRSSA Special Events Chair
On March 19, PRSSA collaborated with Caroline Knight from the Career Center to jumpstart a series of workshops. The first workshop focused on tips and techniques for building the perfect resume and cover letter. From the session here is a compilation of all the tips we required.
Resume Tips:
- What story does your resume to tell—Show progression, responsibility and eventually indicate a focus.
- No resume is one size fits all—It’s important to create a master and target resume depending on what job or position you are applying to.
- Organize your experience into sections—Organizing your experience can help to personalize your resume.
- Relative Experience: Experience that is directly related to the position you are applying to
- Additional Experience: List clubs and activated that relate to the field you are applying to
- Selective Experience: Experience that may not be related to the field, but is still beneficial to add.
- The importance of bullet points—Under each experience list three to four bullet points that indicate the most important skills learned. Use an action verb to start, present an outcome for each point and really put an effort into each one to best represent yourself.
- Skills—List three to four skills that stand out and appear unique (i.e. computer (social media), language, relevant technology (equipment), website software). Don’t use soft skills, they should already be weaved into the experience sections.
- Include one relevant link—Decide what best represents you and your work and include a link to either LinkedIn, digital portfolio, website or social media.
- Proofread—Staring at a resume for so long could mean missing a mistake. Find a friend or go to the Career Center to have an extra set of eyes look over your work before sending it out to employers. The Career Center has walk-ins Tuesday through Friday from 1-3 p.m., or students can schedule appointments with their designated advisors. Students can also submit to an Online Resume Review.
Cover Letter Tips:
- The purpose of a cover letter—A cover letter is meant demonstrate that you the applicant have a set of the required skills for the position. It is a chance to connect past experiences to the position.
- Content and format—A cover letter should be three to four paragraphs long. Use keywords from the job description and the industry. Also highlight two to three experiences that may not be on your resume.
- Sending out a cover letter—If you are sending in an application through an online portal it is best to submit your cover letter and resume as a PDF. However, if you are sending your application through email make the cover letter the email. Employers often don’t have enough time to read a lengthy introduction email on top of a cover letter so make them one in the same.
*Other Cover Letter and Resume Resources